In lieu of this week’s EJ recap, I thought I’d share a few leveling tips based on my experiences in the beta. I’ve limited the number of spoilers to a scant few and those I have included are mentioned last, so if you want to completely avoid any hint of a spoiler, stop reading when you get to “quests.”

Those of you planning to try for a world-first have already practiced on the beta, been watching Kripparrian’s stream, and perfected your strategies; this article is not intended for you.

Frostheim recently wrote a nice guide on hunter leveling in Mists of Pandaria and it’s worth reading if you haven’t already. The Grumpy Elf wrote a general guide on leveling in Mists of Pandaria that is also recommend reading. I offer a few additional tips and notes here.

Specialization: I leveled through to 90 as Beast Mastery and then again as Survival and honestly it didn’t seem to make much difference as far as ease in leveling; they both worked very nicely and were a joy to play. We don’t get the chance to experience new expansions that often so my suggestion is to level with the spec you enjoy playing the most.

Pets: It’s worth noting that you can change your pet’s spec from ferocity to tenacity or vice versa at any time as long as you’re not in combat. I found that a tenacity pet was preferred for killing rare elites I came across and for AoE tanking when I pulled everything in sight for kill quests, but otherwise a ferocity pet will do. DPS-wise, Zeherah suggested that using a pet that brings the crit buff along with drums is probably the best option.

Glyphs: After some experimentation I decided on Marked for Death, Glyph of Mending, and Glyph of Misdirection. Since Misdirection is free and not on the global cooldown, you can macro it with any or all of your shots. I found it especially helpful to macro Misdirection with Multi-Shot for AoE pulls. The @focus line in the macro below is so that if I’m in a dungeon I can set the tank as my focus and mds will then go to the tank rather than my pet.

Note that the 10% mounted speed increase from the Pathfinding glyph doesn’t stack with the level 3 guild perk Mount Up. If you plan to spend a lot of time on foot or are not a member of a level 3 or higher guild, you might prefer Pathfinding over another glyph.

Talents: I choose Narrow Escape (fun for getting away from adds while your pet picks them up), Silencing Shot (many of the mobs cast interrupt-able fireballs and such), Spirit Bond for the constant stream of healing, and Thrill of the Hunt (it’s passive so one less button to press and it seems to proc constantly, which is great for multi-shot spam on AoE packs). Your choice for the level 75 talent depends on your personal leveling style.

New talents: At level 87 you’ll get Stampede. It provides a nice burst and I used it for elites and large trash packs. Note that once the mob you’re fighting dies, the stampede will wander off and aggro other mobs in the vicinity, so take care where you use it. At level 90 you’ll get to choose between Glaive Toss, Powershot, and Barrage. I choose Glaive Toss because not only does it do more damage than the other talents, it’s also the first time hunters have had the opportunity to use weapons similar to the Night Elf Sentinel’s glaives, and it looks and sounds cool.

Selecting Gear: I wouldn’t stress too much about selecting gear early on. If you have gemmed, enchanted Dragon Soul or Gladiator gear it should serve you well until you reach level 87-88. Once you reach Kun-Lai Summit and the Townlong Steppes, you’ll find the quest reward gear is starting to look good. If you’d like to plan out quests you want to do for particular rewards, see the MoP Hunter Gear Guide, which includes sources for all the gear. For PvP gear see Hunter Season 12 PvP Gear.

Quests: The MoP experience is balanced differently than past expansions; it takes only a day or less of play time at a relaxed pace to reach level 90. Once you reach 90, a large variety of reputation faction quest chains and dailies will open up. The bulk of the questing experience is thus centered on the level 90 reputation quests rather than on leveling.

If you’re skipping quests, one you might not want to skip is the Temple of the White Tiger quest chain in Kan-Lai summit, as it facilitates entry into your faction’s capitol city in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. The capitols have all of the amenities including trainers, auction houses, banks, and portals to the major cities.

One quality-of-life change introduced in Mists of Pandaria is that quest hubs are marked on your map with an exclamation point, so it’s easy to find quests even if you miss the breadcrumbs.

Factions: Unlike previous expansions, you won’t need to grind rep with a particular faction for access to head or shoulder enchants; shoulder enchants are now provided by scribes, and head enchants have been removed from the game entirely. Gaining reputation with the various factions does however grant access to unique mounts, recipes, and other perks. Faction rep is now also required to purchase gear with Valor and Justice points. Read Valor and Justice Point Gear for Hunters in MoP to see which gear is associated with which faction rep. For details on all of the factions see the faction previews at Wowhead. There is no longer a cap on the number of daily quests that you can complete each day; however, you are still limited to only 25 quests in your log at one time.

Boots from “A Brewing Story” scenario

If you’re aiming for the legendary, you’ll need to gain reputation with the Black Prince (Wrathion). If you work on the quests associated with the Golden Lotus faction, you’ll simultaneously gain reputation with the Black Prince as you kill quest mobs in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

Scenarios: It’s definitely worthwhile to try out the new scenarios as soon as they become available to you. They’re fast and fun (at least the first few times through) and there’s a good chance to get ilvl 463 gear in your treasure cache along with Valor Points (ilvl 463 is equivalent to heroic dungeon gear). In scenarios, you’re much less dependent on the skill of your team-mates than you are in dungeons; as a hunter, you can pull out a tenacity pet and solo a scenario if things turn bad. The queues are also much shorter than dungeon queue times because no specific roles are required.

My tip is: Shoot for what I call “Server Fast”, Server First can be a very frustrating endeavor where the biggest loser is 2nd place. Do what you can to prepare but after that, when it’s game time, enjoy yourself and know that there are A LOT of bonus’ to being one of the first people on your server to hit level cap, even if you’re the FIRST person to do it.

GL and HF!

Kheydar

Posted September 24, 2012 at 9:51 AM

Thanks Tabana :D

Harvoc

Posted October 1, 2012 at 8:38 PM

I’m just going to copy over the relevant parts of my comment from Kheldul’s site:

I don’t feel the Glyph of Mending is really necessary as I stated in my previous comment, mobs don’t really hit that hard.

For the first tier, I’m running with Hidden Tiger, Crouching Chimera as having Disengage up so often is really helpful. Posthaste sounds good for the same reason because of the movement speed increase but I like the frequent Deterrences as it allows me to mine (or herb, skin, loot quest items, etc.) uninterrupted if I’m being attacked. Narrow Escape isn’t really useful for my playstyle as mobs don’t really hit that hard, we can attack from melee range now, and it brings the loot to us.

In the fourth tier, I like Blink Strike as it’s almost always up for each quest mob. The other two are pretty useless as they’re such long cooldowns and it’s overkill for quest mobs anyways, especially Murder of Crows.

Glyph of Misdirection isn’t really necessary for the same reason as Narrow Escape. I’m thinking about using Glyph of Camouflage, Glyph of Disengage, or Glyph of Black Ice in my last slot. Glyph of Camouflage allows you to avoid mobs while questing, especially when paired with the Glyph of Pathfinding.

Glyph of Disengage is useful because you can Disengage towards your next quest target when your current one is almost dead. Then you Fetch/Looterang and proceed.

As for Glyph of Black Ice, dropping the trap in the middle of a quest area and then just running through it as you’re killing mobs nearby sounds awesome.

I probably won’t run with the Glyph of Stampede as I like the damage boost of having different pets with different buffs/debuffs. Though as with the rest of our cooldowns, the only mobs that can withstand Stampede are the elites that we have to kill every so often.

Harvoc

Posted October 1, 2012 at 8:40 PM

Ignore the “as I stated in my previous comment” part. Also, I would like to clarify that having Disengage up more often is useful because you can Disengage away from your current quest mob as it’s dying and towards your next one. It’s the same reasoning behind the Glyph of Disengage (more distance is always good).

It sounds as though it’s a matter of different playstyles. I found it most efficient while leveling to pull all of the quest mobs in an area at once, misdirecting them onto my pet then AoE-ing them down. If you’re killing one mob at a time then different talents and glyphs would indeed suit your playstyle better.

muzzleflash

Posted November 8, 2012 at 9:14 AM

I use Stampede, I found that what ever pets you have in your stable will auto cast any abilaties you have set to autocast, i have a crit +5% pet the ranged/melee speed +10% pet and 5% agil/str/int pet as well as one that casts 3 stack of sunder armour and one for -10% dps. this helps boos my groups burst dps and is F$#@ing awsome during heroisim.

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